This invention relates to a novel method of making an intermittently dyed yarn, and has particular reference to a method of making multicolored yarns in the form of a warp which is particularly suitable for the production of tufted pile carpets.
In the production of carpets composed of the well known "spacedyed" yarns, such as yarns produced in accordance with my issued U.S. Pat. No. 3,012,303, granted Dec. 12, 1961 and my U.S. Pat. No. 3,102,322, granted Sept. 3, 1963, it has been conventional to form the drawn and crimped continuous filament yarn into a prefabric such as knitted tubing, for example, and to pad dye the tubing with an overall basic color. This was followed by "spacedyeing" in which selected areas of the tubing were printed with different colors, following which the prefabric was dyed and the dye was heat-set. It was then necessary to deknit each individual prefabric, producing only a single end of yarn. Such single end was either wound into a single package or combined with other single ends from other prefabrics to form a warp. Thereafter, the yarn was subjected to a carpet tufting operation in order to produce a multicolored tufted carpet. This, of course, is a complicated and laborious operation.
It is accordingly an object of this invention to provide a method which avoids the need to knit and later to deknit individual ends of yarn. It is another object to provide a method of making a multiplicity of yarns from a single prefabric, which yarns are "spacedyed" and are ideally adapted for production of carpet with drastically reduced cost.
It is still another object of this invention to provide a carpet making method which utilizes less floor space in the mill and which is integrated with the "spacedyeing" process.